


A different kind of rush

by SharpestRose



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-08
Updated: 2011-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:39:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The episode Rush hurts me. While at the same time, yum. My confusion leads to writing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A different kind of rush

The barn always makes Lex uneasy. Something about the smell of it, it reminds him too strongly of all the things he used to have nightmares about. The smell of the countryside, plants and animals.

Anyone who says farm life is wholesome has never had to have surgery to replace lost eyebrows after a massive dose of extraterrestrial radiation in a cornfield.

Clark and Gabe Sullivan's daughter Chloe are standing at the foot of the stairs, and Pete Ross is up high with an especially hostile scowl aimed straight at Lex.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Lex says. Chloe's the first to look over at him, and... _wow_. Lex has tried his very best to think of Clark's crowd with the purest intentions he can muster, because anything else could get him in a world of trouble. And, considering dear old Dad's current wish to see him rot in hell, it's the worst possible time to fall from those lofty ideals.

Which is a real shame, because it's very difficult to think of this dark and brazen creature as the teenage daughter of one of Lex's employees.

Lex's gaze flicks from Chloe to Clark when Clark replies "You are." And if Chloe's jail bait, then Clark's... well, jail bait.

"Does he know?" Chloe asks, and she's sauntering over towards Lex like a predator who's just seen something small and furry and quivering. "About you?"

"No," Clark answers her. Then he glares at Lex, and Lex is surprised to discover that at some point during his life he has gained a small internal voice of reason. Said voice is currently reminding Lex that it would be a very bad idea for him to do something very illegal with a very underage friend at this point in time. Lex swallows and does his best to listen.

Then Clark's narrowed eyes flash dangerously, and the internal reasoning dies away with a strangled noise of lust. "I only tell people who don't go around stabbing me in the back and lying to me." Clark's voice is smooth as poison.

The words cut like needle-sharp whips. Lex rallies within a split-second, of course, but a triumphant curl to Chloe's lip tells him that she saw his hurt nonetheless. Lex can't believe that he's feeling intimidated by a bunch of high school kids.

"Clark," he manages to say. "Can I have a word with you? Alone?"

"I'm busy," Clark answers, and stands just outside the periphery of Lex's comfort zone. "Haven't you ever heard of the phone, Luthor?"

Lex is no stranger to power games, by any means, but has rarely felt so unprepared for one. Wolves, he finds himself thinking. Circling. A whelp daring to challenge the alpha.

"Aw, c'mon Clark," Chloe says, and moves around so Lex can't keep his eye on the both of them at once. "I think it'd -" and Lex's breath falters because now she's trailing the tip of one finger down the length of his spine and it doesn't matter that there are layers of cloth between them. Wasn't he supposed to be the mature one with the control here? - "blow his mind." Whispered, her breath hot against the shell of his ear.

Clark's mouth widens into a slow smile, even as his eyes remain flinty and hateful.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you guys were on something," says Lex.

"Just having a good time." Clark puts his hands high on Lex's chest, fingers curling with the slightest of pressures against the side of his neck. Chloe laughs when Pete makes a noise of disgust.

"Jealous?" she asks, turning her back to Lex to face Pete. "Wanna join in?"

"I'll meet you in the car," Pete answers before coming down the stairs and exiting the barn.

"Wanna come with us?" Chloe rests one of her hands on Lex's shoulder, the other on Clark's forearm. Lex has heard no small share of dirty talk in his life but still has to give her ample points for the promise she manages to put into such a simple question.

"I think it'd be best if I refrained," answers Lex, and his internal voice of reason protests loudly.

"Not even a little curious what the surprise is? The big secret?" Clark's grip tightens, kneading into Lex's shoulders with just enough force that there will be a small bruise for each finger.

"You know, before I came to Smallville, I went to a school with a uniform. Little plaid skirt, button-up sweater. I've still got it at home." Lex can't even turn to watch Chloe, Clark's eyes are too powerful and close and unreadable. She continues to speak anyway, even as Lex and Clark's attentions are firmly locked on one another. "It's probably a bit short on the leg now, and I doubt the buttons will stay closed, but I could give it a shot anyway. Like that idea, boys?"

Clark flicks his eyes to Chloe, giving her an appreciative up-and-down look. Imagining how the getup would look, doubtlessly. Lex finds the mental picture quite alluring himself, but doesn't pause to consider it in any great detail.

Released from Clark's gaze, Lex takes a step back and shakes his head. Though he never expected to have these two as his opponents, he still knows all the rules to this game. Clark follows his retreat, tongue-tip visible for a moment as he wets his lips.

"I'll see you later," Lex says firmly, and leaves.

As he reaches the door of the barn, Chloe fires a parting shot. "You know, I always wondered. All the money in the world and you still can't afford a good toupee."

Lex doesn't pause in his stride.

  
-

  
It's four days before Clark comes to the mansion. Lex is surprised that it's not longer.

"Hi," Clark says in a tone of pure humiliated apology. "My parents said that you were the one who found them out looking for Pete and said that something weird was going on with me as well. I wanted to call and say thanks, but figured I owed it to you to say it in person. That, and -" Clark swallows. "And sorry."

"I would have thought you'd still be hospitalised," admits Lex, not moving from behind his desk. The trappings of superiority give him a subtle kind of comfort, and he doesn't let himself consider how many times he's let the comments made in the barn go through his head. The edge hasn't dulled with repetition.

"Chloe and Pete are," Clark agrees. Then, "Lex, those things we said... they didn't mean anything. None of it did."

"No big secret? I find that hard to believe." Lex crosses his arms. "Forgive me for stating the obvious, Clark, but there's even more to this than the already tangled web that I know about. Frankly, I fail to see how you can be so self-righteous about my supposed 'back stabbing' and lying when you never tell me even half of what's going on."

Clark's discomfort is teetering on the edge of true distress. "I'm sorry. There have been some things I -"

"I went out to the gorge, you know," Lex says, conversational where he was confrontational moments before. "That same evening. Looks like someone shot Pete Ross's car until the fuel line caught."

"Yeah." Clark shifts from foot to foot. Lex has never seen him look so out of place before. Anywhere. "My dad... we were doing crazy stuff, he wanted to lure us close enough that he and Mom could grab us. So he got the gun out and he was waving it around, trying to get our attention. It went off a couple of times by accident."

"That so?" Lex can't hold the mocking smile in any longer. "It seems incredible good luck that none of you were close enough to be hurt by the blast."

"Yeah, well, you know the saying about God looking after half-wits, children, and drunks." Clark shrugs, a nervous grin not quite forming on his face.

"So which is it you take me for, out of the three?" Lex walks over to the fireplace, turning away from Clark to look at the ashes. His shoulders and neck are still sore, small green-grey smudges all that's left visible of the marks Clark put there. There are only two above the line of Lex's collar, at the back, and he knows Clark can see them now.

"There were remains of cloth in the fire, Clark. Some scraps of denim and cotton. Flannel. Badly charred, but it was still evident what they'd been before immolation." Pause. "This is the part where you'll tell me that you took your clothes off just prior to the blast, and left them on the passenger seat," prompts Lex, the sarcasm dripping from every word.

"Got it in one," Clark says weakly, smile wavering. Lex shakes his head, reaching into his pocket.

"Care to tell me what this is?"

Clark steps back so abruptly that Lex is sure that he'll trip over his own feet. He doesn't, of course. Clark rarely moves with anything less that total balance and purpose.

"Don't let that stuff get anywhere near me." Clark's voice is sharp, his eyes wide with something that seems to be half horror and half lust. "Lex, _please_."

It's the pleading that mollifies Lex, makes him put the little red gem back into his pocket. He never thought he'd be reduced to such base power struggles with Clark. It stings, deep down. Lex ignores the feeling.

Clark takes several deep breaths before raising his chin to face Lex again, and when he does the defeat is bleak and total in his eyes.

"I came here -"

"To say sorry. You did already," Lex cuts him off.

"No." Clark shakes his head, anger and sadness coming off him in waves. "I came here because I'm tired of the lying. We were so close, once." It seems like lifetimes past, even though it was only a few short months ago that they were tied close as blood kin. "Because I shouldn't expect your trust when I've never given you mine."

"I'm listening," Lex answers, and keeps his eyes on the ashes. He can't keep up the guise of power, not when the pain in Clark's voice is leaving him raw.

"My father shot the fuel line when I was inside the car, so that my clothes would be burned off my skin. That rock was in the pocket of my shirt. It's the reason I was acting... unlike myself. In the barn." It's not defeat he saw in Clark's eyes, Lex realises. It was surrender.

"So you expect me to believe you survived being in the centre of a fireball, Clark?" Lex's voice is icy. Clark doesn't answer, and after a few seconds Lex feels a mirthless laugh rising in his throat. "What happened at the river that day? Really happened, I mean?"

"You hit me at sixty miles per hour. When we hit the water, I had to pull the roof off to get you out." Clark sounds so calm, so matter-of-fact, that Lex is sure for a minute that he himself is infected with some cursed bug-creature and hallucinating.

"Maybe it's best if I start at the beginning," offers Clark. Not trusting his voice, Lex nods. Clark takes a deep breath, and starts to speak.

-

"..and I think that's everything. Yeah. Um, Lex? You still in there, somewhere?"

Lex blinks, raises his head. It seems so strange that Clark looks just as he always has. But, then again, this is no new shift for Clark, is it? Maybe it's Lex who appears different now.

"Is that all?" he manages to say after a minute. "Here I was expecting something big." Despite the odds, he can make a semblance of a smile out of his features. Clark lets out a huge sigh of relief, though whether that's because he's finally opened the floodgates or because Lex hasn't tried to lock him up yet, or fainted, isn't apparent.

"I wanted to tell you, a long time ago. But... I couldn't. Then we started keeping secrets from each other. Other secrets, I mean," Clark hastily clarifies, seeing Lex's expression. "It seemed too late, then. Our friendship was too complicated and distant."

"So you thought that the aftermath of a Lolita double-act with your classmate, which you now claim was the result of the red stone currently in my pocket, was a simpler and less complicated opportunity than other chances you'd had?" Lex shakes his head, regaining his usual conversation rhythms. Apparently it takes more than learning his close friend is a creature from another world to rattle him for long. Good to know.

Clark flushes bright red across his cheekbones. "Uh. Did I mention I was really sorry for that? Really, really sorry?"

"Oh, not nearly often enough," Lex assures him. "You're going to have to grovel for months before I let that memory fade."

It's like the weight of the world has been lifted from Clark's shoulders, along with months of steadily building animosity between them. There's just the two of them, and the truth, and all the rest is gone. If it were physically possible for Luthors to feel giddy (which it most certainly is not), Lex would at that moment.

"So what now?" he asks. "I'm going to guess that your parents are not aware you decided to come clean with me."

"They won't really have much choice but to deal with it now, I guess," Clark answers. Lex has a vision of Jonathan Kent chasing him through the cornfields with a shotgun. It's disturbingly easy to imagine such a scenario.

"I've told Walden you're to have as much access to the caves as you want."

"Thanks," Clark says, and for the first time in too long the sincerity isn't laced with anything but truth. Lex, caught up in the moment, steps forward to hug Clark.

"Not while you've got that rock still in your pocket," Clark says, backing away with his hands held up in front of him. "That never ends well, as we've established."

"Right." Smirking, Lex goes to the desk and drops the offending stone into a drawer, which he then closes and locks. "I'll just keep it here. Just in case we ever need it. Something like that could come in handy."

Clark looks startled, then terribly worried. Lex laughs, throwing back his head. "Clark. I'm joking."

"Oh." Clark gives another nervous grin. "Okay." This time when Lex moves to hug him, Clark doesn't back away.

"So how'd you know something was wrong? That I wasn't just being an asshole without outside assistance?" Clark asks when they move apart again.

Lex shakes his head, the answer too ridiculous to contemplate sharing. Then again, it wouldn't be fair to hold back after Clark's full disclosure. He leans against the edge of his desk.

"That's not the first time you've come in contact with the red meteor rocks, is it?" Lex asks. Clark makes a small affirmative noise. "The time you wanted to go to Metropolis, leave the farm forever... that was the same thing."

"Yeah." Clark rubs the back of his neck, looking abashed.

"Thought so." Smirking, Lex wanders over and picks a piece of lint off Clark's shirt. "You smell different when you're under the influence, Clark."

Clark's eyebrows shoot up. "I _smell_ different?"

"Got it in one," Lex replies.

The room rings with Clark's surprised laughter.


End file.
